XXV
While the carts, escorted by gendarmes, were rumbling along on their wayto the Place du Trone Renverse, carrying to their death Brotteaux andhis "accomplices," Evariste sat pensive on a bench in the garden of theTuileries. He was waiting for Elodie. The sun, nearing its setting, shotits fiery darts through the leafy chestnuts. At the gate of the garden,Fame on her winged horse blew her everlasting trumpet. The newspaperhawkers were bawling the news of the great victory of Fleurus.
"Yes," thought Gamelin, "victory is ours. We have paid full price forit."
He could see the beaten Generals, disconsolate shades, trailing in theblood-stained dust of yonder Place de la Revolution where they perished.And he smiled proudly, reflecting that, but for the severities in whichhe had borne his share, the Austrian horses would to-day be gnawing thebark of the trees beside him.
He soliloquized:
"Life-giving terror, oh! blessed terror! Last year at this time, ourheroic defenders were beaten and in rags, the soil of the fatherland wasinvaded, two-thirds of the departments in revolt. Now our armies, wellequipped, well trained, commanded by able generals, are taking theoffensive, ready to bear liberty through the world. Peace reigns overall the territory of the Republic.... Life-giving terror, oh! blessedterror! oh! saintly guillotine! Last year at this time, the Republic wastorn with factions, the hydra of Federalism threatened to devour her.Now a united Jacobinism spreads over the empire its might and itswisdom...."
Nevertheless, he was gloomy. His brow was deeply lined, his mouthbitter. His thoughts ran: "We used to say: _To conquer or to die._ Wewere wrong; it is _to conquer and to die_ we ought to say."
He looked about him. Children were building sand-castles. _Citoyennes_in their wooden chairs under the trees were sewing or embroidering. Thepassers-by, in coat and breeches of elegant cut and strange fashion,their thoughts fixed on their business or their pleasures, were makingfor home. And Gamelin felt himself alone amongst them; he was nocompatriot, no contemporary of theirs. What was it had happened? Howcame the enthusiasm of the great years to have been succeeded byindifference, weariness, perhaps disgust? It was plain to see, thesepeople never wanted to hear the Revolutionary Tribunal spoken of againand averted their eyes from the guillotine. Grown too painful a sight inthe Place de la Revolution, it had been banished to the extremity of theFaubourg Antoine. There even, the passage of the tumbrils was greetedwith murmurs. Voices, it was said, had been heard to shout: "Enough!"
Enough, when there were still traitors, conspirators! Enough, when theCommittees must be reformed, the Convention purged! Enough, whenscoundrels disgraced the National representation. Enough, when they wereplanning the downfall of _The Just!_ For, dreadful thought, but only tootrue! Fouquier himself was weaving plots, and it was to ruin Maximilienthat he had sacrificed with solemn ceremony fifty-seven victims haled todeath in the red sheet of parricides. France was giving way to pity--andpity was a crime! Then we should have saved her in spite of herself, andwhen she cried for mercy, stopped our ears and struck! Alas! the fateshad decided otherwise; the fatherland was for cursing its saviours.Well, let it curse, if only it may be saved!
"It is not enough to immolate obscure victims, aristocrats, financiers,publicists, poets, a Lavoisier, a Roucher, an Andre Chenier. We muststrike these all-puissant malefactors who, with hands full of gold anddripping with blood, are plotting the ruin of _the Mountain_--theFouchers, Talliens, Roveres, Carriers, Bourdons. We must deliver theState from all its enemies. If Hebert had triumphed, the Convention wasoverthrown, the Republic hastening to the abyss; if Desmoulins andDanton had triumphed, the Convention had lost its virtue, ready tosurrender the Republic to the aristocrats, the money-jobbers and theGenerals. If men like Tallien and Foucher, monsters gorged with bloodand rapine, triumph, France is overwhelmed in a welter of crime andinfamy ... Robespierre, awake; when criminals, drunken with fury andaffright, plan your death and the death of freedom! Couthon, Saint-Just,make haste; why tarry ye to denounce the plots?
"Why! the old-time state, the Royal monster, assured its empire byimprisoning every year four hundred thousand persons, by hanging fifteenthousand, by breaking three thousand on the wheel--and the Republicstill hesitates to sacrifice a few hundred heads for its security anddomination! Let us drown in blood and save the fatherland...."
He was buried in these thoughts when Elodie hurried up to him,pale-faced and distraught:
"Evariste, what have you to say to me? Why not come to the _Amourpeintre_ to the blue chamber? Why have you made me come here?"
"To bid you an eternal farewell."
He had lost his wits, she faltered, she could not understand....
He stopped her with a very slight movement of the hand:
"Elodie, I cannot any more accept your love."
She begged him to walk on further; people could see them, overhear them,where they were.
He moved on a score of yards, and resumed, very quietly:
"I have made sacrifices to my country of my life and my honour. I shalldie infamous; I shall have naught to leave you, unhappy girl, save anexecrated memory.... We, love? Can anyone love me still?... Can I love?"
She told him he was mad; that she loved him, that she would always lovehim. She was ardent, sincere; but she felt as well as he, she feltbetter than he, that he was right. But she fought against the evidenceof her senses.
He went on:
"I blame myself for nothing. What I have done, I would do again. I havemade myself anathema for my country's sake. I am accursed. I have putmyself outside humanity; I shall never re-enter its pale. No, the greattask is not finished. Oh! clemency, forgiveness!--Do the traitorsforgive? Are the conspirators clement? scoundrels, parricides multiplyunceasingly; they spring up from underground, they swarm in from all ourfrontiers,--young men, who would have done better to perish with ourarmies, old men, children, women, with every mark of innocence, purity,and grace. They are offered up a sacrifice,--and more victims are readyfor the knife!... You can see, Elodie, I must needs renounce love,renounce all joy, all sweetness of life, renounce life itself."
He fell silent. Born to taste tranquil joys, Elodie not for the firsttime was appalled to find, under the tragic kisses of a lover likeEvariste, her voluptuous transports blended with images of horror andbloodshed; she offered no reply. To Evariste the girl's silence was as adraught of a bitter chalice.
"Yes, you can see, Elodie, we are on a precipice; our deeds devour us.Our days, our hours are years. I shall soon have lived a century. Lookat this brow! Is it a lover's? Love!..."
"Evariste, you are mine, I will not let you go; I will not give you backyour freedom."
She was speaking in the language of sacrifice. He felt it; she felt itherself.
"Will you be able, Elodie, one day to bear witness that I lived faithfulto my duty, that my heart was upright and my soul unsullied, that I knewno passion but the public good; that I was born to feel and love? Willyou say: 'He did his duty'? But no! You will not say it and I do not askyou to say it. Perish my memory! My glory is in my own heart; shamebeleaguers me about. If you love me, never speak my name; eternalsilence is best."
A child of eight or nine, trundling its hoop, ran just then betweenGamelin's legs.
He lifted the boy suddenly in his arms:
"Child, you will grow up free, happy, and you will owe it to theinfamous Gamelin. I am ferocious, that you may be happy. I am cruel,that you may be kind; I am pitiless, that to-morrow all Frenchmen mayembrace with tears of joy."
He pressed the child to his breast.
"Little one, when you are a man, you will owe your happiness, yourinnocence to me; and, if ever you hear my name uttered, you willexecrate it."
Then he put down the child, which ran away in terror to cling to itsmother's skirts, who had hurried up to the rescue. The young mother, whowas pretty and charming in her aristocratic grace, with her gown ofwhite lawn, carried off the boy with a haughty look.
Gamelin turned his eyes on Elodie:
"I have held the child in my arms; perhaps I shall send the mother tothe guillotine,"--and he walked away with long strides under the orderedtrees.
Elodie stood a moment motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground. Then,suddenly, she darted after her lover, and frenzied, dishevelled, like aMaenad, she gripped him as if to tear him in pieces and cried in a voicechoked with blood and tears:
"Well, then! me too, my beloved, send me to the guillotine; me too, layme under the knife!"
And, at the thought of the knife at her neck, all her flesh melted in anecstasy of horror and voluptuous transport.